Aboriginal Australians comprise many distinct people who have developed across Australia for over 50,000 years. These people have a broadly shared through complex, genetic history, but it is only in the last two hundred years that they have been defined and started to self-identifyas a single group. The definition of the term 'Aboriginal' has changed over time and place, with the importance of family lineage, self-identification and community acceptance all being of varying importance.
For a better understanding of a group of people, society, or community, it is best to understand their history. Aristotle said, "A prerequisite to understanding anything is an understanding of its beginning and development stage by stage". On this premise, it will be rightful to give a brief history on these set of people— Aboriginal Australians.
The ancestors of present-day Aboriginal Australians migrated from Asia by sea during the Pleistocene era and lived over large sections of the Australian continental shelf when the sea levels were lower and Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea were part of the same landmass. As sea levels rose, the people on the Australian mainland and nearby islands became increasingly isolated, and some were isolated on Tasmania and some of the smaller offshore islands when the land was inundated at the start of the Holocene, the inter-glacial period which started about 11,700 years ago and persists today.
The Aboriginal Australians are believed to be "Australia's first people". Australians are split into two groups: Aboriginal peoples, who are related to those who already inhabited Australia when Britain began colonizing the island in 1788, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who descend from residents of the Torres Strait Islands, a group of islands that is part of modern-day Queensland, Australia. All Aboriginal Australians are related to groups indigenous to Australia. However, the use of the term indigenous is controversial, since it can be claimed by people who descend from people who weren’t the original inhabitants of the Islands.
In 2017, a genetic study of the genomes of 111 Aboriginal Australians found that today’s Aboriginal Australians are all related to a common ancestor who was a member of a distinct population that emerged on the mainland about 50,000 years ago. Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
British settlement
When British settlers began colonizing Australia in 1788, between 750,000 and 1.25 million Aboriginal Australians are estimated to have lived there. Soon, epidemics ravaged the island’s indigenous people, and British settlers seized the Aboriginal lands. Though some Aboriginal Australians did resist—up to 20,000 indigenous people died in the violent conflict on the colony's frontiers—most were subjugated by massacres and the impoverishment of their communities as British settlers seized their lands.
Most Aboriginal people speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English(which also has a tangible influence of Aboriginal Languages in the phonology and grammatical structure). Some Aboriginal people, especially those living in remote areas, are multi-lingual. Many of the original 250–400 Aboriginal languages are endangered or extinct, although some efforts are being made at language revival for some.
In the 2016 Australian Census, Indigenous Australians comprised 3.3% of Australia's population, with 91% of these identifying as Aboriginal only, 5% Torres Strait Islander, and 4% both.
The Stolen Generations
Between 1910 and 1970, government policies of assimilation led to between 10 and 33 percent of Aboriginal Australian children being forcibly removed from their homes. These “Stolen Generations” were put in adoptive families and institutions and forbidden from speaking their native languages. Their names were often changed.
In 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a national apology for the country's actions toward Aboriginal Australians of the Stolen Generations; since then, Australia has worked to reduce social disparities between Aboriginal Australians and non-indigenous Australians.
Only in 1967 did Australians vote that federal laws also would apply to Aboriginal Australians. Most Aboriginal Australians did not have full citizenship or voting rights until 1965.
Today, about three percent of Australia's population has Aboriginal heritage. Aboriginal Australians still struggle to retain their ancient culture and fight for recognition— and restitution—from their Australian government. According to facts, the State of Victoria is currently working towards a first-of-its-kind treaty with the Aboriginal population thay will recognize Aboriginal Australians' sovereignty and include compensation. However, Australia itself has never made such a treaty, making it the only country in the British Commonwealth not to have ratified a treaty with its first Nations people.
Comments
Post a Comment